As an aside, "Wetiko" is a Native American word, of I believe Apache origin, which essentially means "to consume the soul". It is a word that means to take EVERYTHING, even the most essential, with no forethought as to what this will mean later.

Ex: If I take out all the money in my bank account, fly to vegas, and spend it on poker tables and dirty ass, that is a "Wetiko" move. It is a mentality, but an adjective.

In the societal, economic sense, it is the driving need to take all from what surrounds us, and a mentality that we are entitled to do so. I can give a very neighborly example.

I live on 335 acres, and my "neighbor" is about 2 miles away. He moved here about ten years ago....and we didn't really get along for awhile.

He is a big time deer hunter...and by that I mean that he put out feed for them, setup about a dozen metal tree stands ( a few have power, last I heard), pretty much spent tons of money to make his property a killing field for deer. He clearly hunted them out of season in the winter, had a nuisance license allowing him to do so, and went so far as to SELL his meat. (This is illegal, BTW)

Last year, I catch him on my property building a stand. It was pretty easy to spot, seeing as I don't stand-hunt, I stalk. We had a pretty bad altercation (he had already killed a few deer there, field-dressing was obvious). Why?

Because he doesn't have anymore deer on his land. After a few years of killing pretty much every deer he could, including does or yearlings, he had pretty much wiped out his own population. He deliberately went onto my land for this reason. I kill only young males, as these are the least likely to make it through the winters here anyway. I don't kill the chief, the big trophy buck that everyone uses as some kind of perverse status symbol. He has genes that have allowed him to survive many winters, beat out other bucks, become leader....kill him, and soon little pussy-ass bucks are getting does and having little runt fawns that can't survive....do that over ten years, you end up like my neighbor.

When I asked him why the hell he did that, his answer was short but very telling. He said, "I mean they were here. They were on my land."

That is the western Wetiko mentality....to him, the fact that it was within his power to kill them all, meant that he would. As soon as possible.

This is what we do, and have done, for a very long time. Some would say since Rome destroyed itself with its own Wetiko mentality....people forget that there were humans for a VERY long time before our calender hit AD. Most of them did not live that way, and were displaced slowly by those who did. Wetiko is inherently war-like.

My point is that the world does this, is enveloped in the Wetiko mentality, and will eventually lead to catastrophe for humankind. I believe we are a long way away from it, but it WILL happen. After, we will return to the way we were meant to live, in balance, after this little 2000 year jaunt into Wetiko. This is just all just a small diversion (2000 years is a blink of an eye in evolution). We will be going back eventually.

They say that if you ask a fish where it lives, the last thing it will say is "water". Wetiko is that water for most of the world. It is about domination, war, power, money, consumption, and the idea that we are ENTITLED to take as much as we want. It is looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

As an aside, "Wetiko" is a Native American word, of I believe Apache origin, which essentially means "to consume the soul". It is a word that means to take EVERYTHING, even the most essential, with no forethought as to what this will mean later.

Ex: If I take out all the money in my bank account, fly to vegas, and spend it on poker tables and dirty ass, that is a "Wetiko" move. It is a mentality, but an adjective.

In the societal, economic sense, it is the driving need to take all from what surrounds us, and a mentality that we are entitled to do so. I can give a very neighborly example.

I live on 335 acres, and my "neighbor" is about 2 miles away. He moved here about ten years ago....and we didn't really get along for awhile.

He is a big time deer hunter...and by that I mean that he put out feed for them, setup about a dozen metal tree stands ( a few have power, last I heard), pretty much spent tons of money to make his property a killing field for deer. He clearly hunted them out of season in the winter, had a nuisance license allowing him to do so, and went so far as to SELL his meat. (This is illegal, BTW)

Last year, I catch him on my property building a stand. It was pretty easy to spot, seeing as I don't stand-hunt, I stalk. We had a pretty bad altercation (he had already killed a few deer there, field-dressing was obvious). Why?

Because he doesn't have anymore deer on his land. After a few years of killing pretty much every deer he could, including does or yearlings, he had pretty much wiped out his own population. He deliberately went onto my land for this reason. I kill only young males, as these are the least likely to make it through the winters here anyway. I don't kill the chief, the big trophy buck that everyone uses as some kind of perverse status symbol. He has genes that have allowed him to survive many winters, beat out other bucks, become leader....kill him, and soon little pussy-ass bucks are getting does and having little runt fawns that can't survive....do that over ten years, you end up like my neighbor.

When I asked him why the hell he did that, his answer was short but very telling. He said, "I mean they were here. They were on my land."

That is the western Wetiko mentality....to him, the fact that it was within his power to kill them all, meant that he would. As soon as possible.

This is what we do, and have done, for a very long time. Some would say since Rome destroyed itself with its own Wetiko mentality....people forget that there were humans for a VERY long time before our calender hit AD. Most of them did not live that way, and were displaced slowly by those who did. Wetiko is inherently war-like.

My point is that the world does this, is enveloped in the Wetiko mentality, and will eventually lead to catastrophe for humankind. I believe we are a long way away from it, but it WILL happen. After, we will return to the way we were meant to live, in balance, after this little 2000 year jaunt into Wetiko. This is just all just a small diversion (2000 years is a blink of an eye in evolution). We will be going back eventually.

They say that if you ask a fish where it lives, the last thing it will say is "water". Wetiko is that water for most of the world. It is about domination, war, power, money, consumption, and the idea that we are ENTITLED to take as much as we want. It is looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

We are not the stewards of nature. It is the steward of us.

I totally agree on the philosophy of it. It's ignorant to assume infinity.

By the way, eliminating Weitko elements of society would be great to complete on a global government level. I would call this eliminating destructive competition.

However, I don't think it's so binary with regards to our future. Technology could change the game. Could...

I think that the presumption that some men meeting in a room can "eliminate destructive competition" and thereby save the planet is the unquestioned war and dominance modeled insanity that he is talking about dude

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

ou're looking at the market side of the equation, but you're ignoring the capital side. Capital exponentially builds capital, so a rich and wealthy class will exist as long as currency is maintained. You have this perverted sense of what government does for these people. They don't have to do too much, theoretically.

Now you have reduced yourself to name calling without reason or explanation. By 'market' I mean everyone, buyers and sellers, consumers and producers. What do you mean by 'market'. By 'elites' I mean the common definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliteht...org/wiki/Elite "is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power". Yes, I was particularly addressing political power and opinion molders. Yes, there is also a class I would name as wealthy, typically by inheritance but there are certainly those of Forbes 100 list, some of whom did not inherit wealth but not many in proportion. They are typically connected with very large corporations and have considerable influence in Gov't. And by wealth I do not mean 'rich', which by common definition lately seems to mean an income on over 1 million. Most of the elites earn that much and more. Income is not capital. If you continually spend all you earn, no matter how much that is, you have no capital. Capital which, because of inflation, must be maintained or grown by investment in something that today returns more than inflation eats up. Capital is definitely part of the 'market'. It is the part that people, either consumers or producers, do not spend from their income, but save and invest.

TheyCallMeLazarus,

thanks for the Wetiko explanation and for the story. I hope you were able to rid your property of his standing blind. Yes, there are way too many Wetikos in our world who 'live in the moment' and do not look to the future or who are so selfish they just don't care.

Last edited by Cryptocode; 09-23-2013 at 12:17 PM.

"When the search for truth is confused with political advocacy, the pursuit of knowledge is reduced to the quest for power." - Alston Chase

Now you have reduced yourself to name calling without reason or explanation. By 'market' I mean everyone, buyers and sellers, consumers and producers. What do you mean by 'market'. By 'elites' I mean the common definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliteht...org/wiki/Elite "is a small group of people who control a disproportionate amount of wealth or political power". Yes, I was particularly addressing political power and opinion molders. Yes, there is also a class I would name as wealthy, typically by inheritance but there are certainly those of Forbes 100 list, some of whom did not inherit wealth but not many in proportion. They are typically connected with very large corporations and have considerable influence in Gov't. And by wealth I do not mean 'rich', which by common definition lately seems to mean an income on over 1 million. Most of the elites earn that much and more. Income is not capital. If you continually spend all you earn, no matter how much that is, you have no capital. Capital which, because of inflation, must be maintained or grown by investment in something that today returns more than inflation eats up. Capital is definitely part of the 'market'. It is the part that people, either consumers or producers, do not spend from their income, but save and invest.

I'm not name calling. My point is this: You are claiming competition will make monopolies impossible, but you forgot that richer companies can afford to outcompete lesser companies if they so choose. For instance, invest more in R&D, offer lower prices, or invest in larger infrastructure. There are competitive advantages to being richer in many, many industries, so this can lead to monopolies even in a totally free market.

So you're afraid that companies might all plot to always lower their prices, research more efficient technology, and grow their operations and jobs?

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

Very interesting Laz. I'm a little hesitant on "peak" theories. It's not that I'm not concerned, it's that I just don't think we know. And it can give people reason to just sit Shiva on the world's death instead of actually changing it.

A bigger concern is interest. It can compound infinitely. And as you mention the earth is not infinite. Capital's a shark that needs to keep moving, and eating. It needs ever higher returns on ever greater amounts of "wealth". As this excess capital moves around, it leaves a swath of destruction.

Only among people of depraved civilizations; why would that be so in a world where Lazarus, instead of representing the exception to the better .01% of the population, was instead 30% of the population?

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

I am not really, by a strict definition, a "peak oil" guy. I am actually pretty active in a lot of political forums, and the true crazies in there call heresy every time I write for giving a more balanced approach.

The standard peak theory is that the price of a commodity, especially key ones like oil or rice, will continue to rise until a price is hit that no one can pay in bulk. This will cause a collapse in demand of course, but for ONCE the price will not be ALLOWED to go any lower, as the oil cannot physically be obtained any cheaper....this then leads to a collapse of the market, and according to some, widespead chaos.

I think this ignores some of the fundamental laws of extraction and economics. In short, I am not a "it's going to run out!" person. I am a "it will cost so much it may as well be gone" person.

The main thing people do not seem to understand is just HOW much power modern oil technology unleashes, and HOW cheap it truly is. There is nothing else on earth that holds that much carbon, hits combustion that easily, yet is stable, transportable in drums, and long-lasting. Natural gas is local, and is exorbitantly expensive to move great distances. (Checkout the price tag for the ONE line that runs into NYC, recently completed) It is also explosive, cannot be shipped unless under pressure (more cost), and cannot be burned by conventional engines.

Most of the easy oil, and by that I mean light sweet crude that is in large elephant fields, is already used up or will be within a decade or two. (We don't know because states keep it a HUGE secret) What will remain are things like oil shale, tar sands, deepwater drilling, etc.....and all of these are many orders of magnitude more expensive than simple sweet crude, both in extraction and especially in purification.

What will remain is a place where refined oil or gasoline is very expensive, and is used mostly by the rich or for industrial purposes.

Very interesting Laz. I'm a little hesitant on "peak" theories. It's not that I'm not concerned, it's that I just don't think we know. And it can give people reason to just sit Shiva on the world's death instead of actually changing it.

A bigger concern is interest. It can compound infinitely. And as you mention the earth is not infinite. Capital's a shark that needs to keep moving, and eating. It needs ever higher returns on ever greater amounts of "wealth". As this excess capital moves around, it leaves a swath of destruction.

Capitalism also leads to entrepreneurship and innovation. You have to find a balance.